Urban Culture

The Working Group Urban Culture is interested in a very prominent aspect of socio-environmental research: the urban as a perceived, conceived and lived space (H. Lefebvre, La production de l’espace [1974]). In the perspective of very different disciplines (Prehistory, Classical Archaeology, Classical Philology, Medieval and Early Modern Archaeology, Medieval and Early Modern History, European Ethnology), the urban is not defined by fixed parameters (e. g. population size) but it is considered as a cultural variable. “Urban” contexts are characterized as dense settlement foci which distinguish from their less densely settled surroundings. Thus, the working group is interested in several crucial issues which all can be considered in respect to their perceived, conceived or lived qualities:

Urban Space: Questions of intraurban organization as well as the question of urban networks / cities and their hinterland.

Urban Transformation: Urbanscapes are conceived to be in constant transition. The processual character can take various forms ranging from resilient spaces to transferred, transformed, transmuted or even decayed spaces.